Svalbard
To honor Pakalolo, ‘Friends of Gaia’ present News from the Arctic. Svalbard, Tsunami & Pissly bears
This is the second installment in my attempt, working with “Friends of Gaia”, to keep DK updated on environmental polar news in Pakalolo’s absence.
Once again, we are asking readers to add any information they gain access to which they would like to share with others. A number of you did this in the ‘Antarctica’ diary comments, and as you will see, we’ve made use of it here.
Pakalolo and M.B are irreplaceable treasures, and I have devoted much of my energy to doing what I can to support their efforts.
For the time being Pakalolo is gone, and ‘Friends’ will be doing our best to further his efforts, but if everyone pitches in, so much the better to keep Pakalolo’s legacy intact and viable.
Most of us hold onto the hope that Pakalolo may return.
If he does, with our collective efforts he may be able to pick things up again without the need for too much backtracking.
These ‘ice’ diaries will be presented through “Friends of Gaia” with ‘birches’, ‘coolspring’ and myself taking turns posting them. This will be done in random order, dependent on our individual schedules and availability.
Please be patient and supportive of our efforts.
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This diary is devoted to news from the Arctic regions, starting with…
Svalbard, Norway … yet another ‘canary’ in our explosive ‘coal mine’ of a planet.
This first link is to an excellent film about the glaciers in Svalbard.
https://youtu.be/xWTTBYxmNTs?si=U4FFyXgr1aBuIBE_
>>>I/ We have provided two still
images from it.
Svalbard
A friend sent us a link to this article concerning the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard and its accelerated glacial losses: Satellite images reveal worrying scale of Svalbard glaciers loss | The Independent Barents Observer
Here are two quotes from the article:
“The archipelago of Svalbard is covered mostly by glaciers. There are more than 2000 glaciers there. Svalbard is a hotspot for Arctic warming - it is warming around 7 times the global average.”
&
Svalbard
“Svalbard acts like an early warning system for us. Svalbard is a useful way of studying what might happen in the future in the other parts of the Arctic that haven’t warmed so strongly.” Jemma Wadham, Professor in Glaciology at Arctic University of Norway (both)
As environmental collapse progresses and we now find ourselves in what many feel is Earth’s sixth ‘extinction’ event, information such as that being provided to us by Svalbard constitutes a blessing. Unfortunately, our near total lack of experience forces us to wait to make sense of events as they unfold, much as one may have to in the thick of battle.
The interconnectivity of all things makes doing this incredibly difficult and anything that can help us to see ahead of the curve is of inestimable value under the circumstances we find ourselves in.
In a sense , Svalbard is our reconnaissance, as it can provide us with valuable insight while there is still time to do something in an ever shortening timeframe that is vanishing as quickly as an unattended ice fishing hole.
Although much of what has been predicted concerning global warming over the last few decades is proving to be more or less accurate, many errors have been made, particularly in terms of the timeline — which has left of standing in the ‘field’ — unarmed. Aside from the difficulties presented by ‘variables’, there still remain unrecognized and unknown forces at play, one of which I am convinced, concerns the manner in which Gaia herself will respond to this crisis.
Which brings us to our next story.…
Pizzly Bears
‘coolspring’ has contributed the links to this story about a remarkable phenomenon and surprising natural solution to potential extinction. While this is apt to be purely circumstantial, as polar bears are driven into grizzly territory by climate change and starvation, that doesn’t negate the wonder of it. With common ancestry, the two species share the right DNA to cross breed. This appears to have been going on for approaching two decades, which is well within the period in which the polar bear habitat started to become alarmingly stressed.
‘coolspring’ had this to say:
“As the man said life will find a way. The Pizzly or Grolar bear. A hybrid cross between the Grizzly and Polar Bear. Grizzly living on land in the upper reaches of the northern land mass while their cousins live on the land and the water even further north. Polar bears need the ice to hunt. Although the pizzly bear has smaller molars than the grizzly, in the photos and videos I have seen the Pizzly doesn't look hungry. Another case of Nature finding a way. Since then, sightings of the hybrids have been increasing, with a 2017 study in the journal Arctic showing eight hybrids springing from a single female polar bear who mated with two grizzly bears. The rise in Pizzly numbers coincide with the decrase of Polar Bears. For full article 'Pizzly' bear hybrids are spreading across the Arctic thanks to climate change | Live Science
Photo credit: Photo by Corradox - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link
Pizzly Bear: 10 Amazing Facts about Polar-Grizzly bear hybrids - Our Planet (ourplnt.com)
From the article:
“Scientists suspect that pizzly bears may be better able to adapt to a warming arctic than polar bears. These hybrids might be better suited for a broader range of food sources than the polar bears, for example – like the grizzly bear, basically eats whatever it finds, from meat to grass.
This hypothesis needs further study and careful observations, scientists think.”
As global warming thins the Arctic sea ice, starving polar bears are being driven to the south as they search for alternative food sources as hunting seals from sea ice becomes untenable, where they meet grizzly bears, whose ranges are expanding northwards. So the two bear species contacting to each other more frequently in recent decades, which resulted in more mating between them. This is increasing the number of pizzly bears.
Scientists Are Still Struggling to Understand New Pizzly Bear Creature (youtube.com)
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In response to my request from readers to provide polar information for our first diary on Antarctica, https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/9/13/2269806/-To-honor-Pakalolo-Friends-of-Gaia-present-News-from-Antarctica?_=2024-09-13T16:57:53.000-07:00
both ‘The Dead Heart’ and ‘xerorest’ linked articles reporting on an anomalous
Greenland tsunami.
In September 2023, earthquake scientists detected a vibration that took the form of a “monotonous hum” composed of a single vibrational frequency and unlike anything they had ever witnessed before. NCEI Hazard Tsunami Event Results
However, this was actually not an isolated event, as something similar had happened in 2017, but on a substantially smaller scale. NCEI Hazard Tsunami Event Information
Last year melting ice removed the support it was providing to the rocky side of DICKSON FJORD, which collapsed, dumping the equivalent volume of 10,000 Olympic size swimming pools in ice and rock into the fjord. This sudden displacement created a wave approximately twice the height of the Statue of Liberty or around 650 feet, which then crashed into the other side of the fjord and immediately began moving back and forth an estimated 10000 times. The resulting oscillation lasted for nine days and created the hum detected by scientists.
From ‘The Dead Heart’ comes this NBC report on the tsunami…
Greenland https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/650-foot-tsunami-greenland-rcna170322
…and a link to an article explaining the forces behind it.
Arctic and subarctic regions are warming at two to three times the rate of the rest of the Earth
From this report:
“Arctic and subarctic regions are warming at two to three times the rate of the rest of the earth because as ice melts away, the darker surfaces that get revealed absorb more sunlight. The warming is driving three dynamics that can make landslides more common in glaciated regions, Higman said.
The first is that higher temperatures are causing permafrost within rock formations to erode, which can weaken slopes and make them more likely to collapse. Second, warming is thinning glaciers that sometimes hold up rock slopes. Removing that ice can cause sudden collapse. Third, climate change increases the chances of extreme rainfall, a top risk factor for landslides because saturated rocks and soils are more prone to slide.”
Dickson Fjord slide site
A related link from ‘xerorest’ on the same same topic
https://www.yahoo.com/news/650-foot-tsunami-greenland-fjord-180212833.html …as well as a third…
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/the-skyscraper-sized-tsunami-that-vibrated-through-the-entire-planet-and-no-one-saw
These sites for news, information and analyses were provided in the comments of the “Antartica” diary:
https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/seaice/. reader ‘B sides’ site for climate analysis
from ‘cawfeemug’. https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/enso/september-2024-enso-update-binge-watch#:~:text=A%20blog%20mostly%20about%20monitoring%20and%20forecasting%20El%20Ni%C3%B1o,%20La
and… https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2024/09/will-we-be-alive-in-2025-who-will-survive-2025.html
…and from ‘4thcorner’ came this useful site:
https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/
